1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to measurement devices for measuring properties of aggregates, soils, and paving materials and, more particularly, to an apparatus, device, system, and method for determining a property of a paving-related material sample with a measurement device having a locating device operably engaged therewith, the measuring device and the locating device being in communication with a portable computer device which, in turn, may be in communication with a central computer device.
2. Description of Related Art
The process of paving roadways is subject to standards which direct the necessary characteristics of the paving used to form the roadway. As such, actual data from the paving contractor supporting such compliance with the applicable standards is often a mandatory requirement of the entity owning the roadway. Often, the entity is part of the government such as, for example, the Department of Transportation of the state. In order to determine compliance with these various standards, the contractor must often perform certain measurements in the field with certain measuring devices at certain points as the roadway is being paved. However, such measuring devices used in the field often use bulky and cumbersome keypads and/or older technology displays having limited capabilities with respect to collecting, storing, manipulating, and displaying the necessary data. In some instances, the measuring device may require the contractor to manually gather the necessary data and/or keep any notes using paper and a writing utensil. The contractor not only must gather the data from the site, but must also transcribe or otherwise manipulate the collected data such that the data can be presented to the owning entity in a usable and/or the required format.
The described data collection process, though, is prone to inaccuracies, both in the collection of the data and the transcription and/or manipulation of the data. Such a process may also, in some instances, become more complicated if there is uncertainty between the contractor and the owning entity regarding a measurement and/or the location of that measurement. Accordingly, this may lead to disputes since the owning entity is often not present to actually witness the applicable measurements that are generally manually performed by the contractor. Further, the owning entity usually receives a manually prepared record of the time, date, location, and value of each measurement as evidence of the contractor's compliance with the applicable standards.
Thus, there exists a need for a system capable of determining a desired property of a sample of a paving-related material, wherein such a system is further capable of associating other measurements or data, such as location, with the determined property of the sample, so as to provide data having the content and format required by the owning entity, while also providing the owning entity with some assurances of accuracy and reliability of the data.